George Barnes

George Barnes (2 January 1859-21 April 1940) was the leader of the Labor Party from 14 February 1910 to 6 February 1911, succeeding Arthur Henderson and preceding Ramsay MacDonald.

Biography
George Nicoll Barnes was born in Lochee, Dundee, Scotland in 1859, and he was raised in Tranmere and Middlesex. He waas educated at a local church school until he became a clerk in a jute mill at the age of 11, and he returned to Dundee in 1872 to become an apprentice at a foundry. Barnes held a variety of jobs throughout the United Kingdom and became a trade unionist, and he became active with the Independent Labor Party in 1893. In 1906, he was elected as the Labor Party MP for Glasgow Blackfriars, defeating Bonar Law. He led the Labor Party in the House of Commons from 1910 to 1911 as chairman of the Parliamentary Labor Party, and he supported the British entry into World War I. Barnes resigned from the Labor Party in 1918 after it objected to continuing the coalition under David Lloyd George, and he was a member of the British delegation at the Paris Peace Conference. Barnes opposed the reparation clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, and he would go on to influence the establishment of the International Labor Organization. He resigned his seat in Parliament in 1922 and died in 1940.